Well, this past week I took a trip down memory lane back to "Summer Camp." Before arriving at said 'camp,' I could not have been more excited to go on (practically) a week long trip with my friends. After being ill-prepared and literally handed only three sheets of paper with what to expect I knew that an adventure was ahead of me.
After never going to sleep, I literally ran to the bus at 4 am Tuesday morning because it was so cold. Upon getting on my assigned bus I was already annoyed at the fact that I was about to be on a ten hour bus ride without any of my friends. Great. Expecting to be on the road by 4:30, I was extremely confused as to why there were about ten different people going up and down the small bus aisle counting us as if we had gotten up and left or something after the first time of being accounted for. I mean they already checked us off for having our passports, did they really think we were just not going to get on the bus or something after leaving the house? I will obviously give the 'adults' credit for taking 70 people on a trip but in all honesty I was extremely confused as to why they were already babying us.
Anyways, after being nearly blown away by the wind after getting off the bus in Avignon I was not surprised that we were eating a planned out meal prior to attending a museum of sorts. Again, I was in no shock when we had to split up into our groups to walk through the museum. It truly brought me back to being in your "cabin group" constantly at summer camp. I can honestly say that for the rest of the week I was an avid member in Group 5. Not once did I have the opportunity to experience life outside Group 5 (which I might add was just a smaller group within Group 'Hotel Napoleon').
Speaking of Hotel Napoleon, this was the same group that was on my bus. Did Pepperdine not want to give me the opportunity to see my friends at all? It was like I went to a summer camp that supported complete and utter segregation. Granted I can probably never fathom attempting to take this large of a group on a trip but as long as everyone is accounted for we are still all adults and we do have the ability to make our own groups with no conflict. I can understand the ultimate goal of wanting to make sure and not forget anyone but we are all nineteen and twenty years old. I like to give myself some credit for having a head on my shoulders at least.
Obviously communication is key when you are split up from all of your friends. But when your hotels are 20 minutes away from each other and nobody has a cell phone what do you do? This brought back memories when electronics were not allowed at camp and cell phones were especially forbidden so you had to just run into people between cabins, in the cafeteria or before skit practice. Let's be honest though, it is almost like electronics are not allowed in Europe unless you want a phone bill of $1,000. It makes sense to have two hotels but must they practically be in different cities? It was almost like our 70-person group was split into two separate 'camps.'
After having an amazing (partial) day of freedom on Wednesday, I was in no shock to find out that essentially there was no more free time until the day we left. Okay yes there were nights to go out, but there were also 7 am wake-up times... every day. I am not going to lie and say that I had no fun because I honestly did but I am also not going to lie and say that I really even felt like I learned anything that benefited me in any way. I more or less felt like a young camper. Let's just say I was surprised by the fact that we did not have a bed time.
Overall, after sounding rather pessimistic, I would like to say that I really did enjoy myself for the most part. I guess you could say that I am using some Cognitive Dissonance but let's be completely honest, I just went to Corsica for a week with no classes. Kind of sounds like an amazing experience to me. So I am just going to shut up now and be thankful.
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